Secrets and the Single Girl
by AlessNox
Summary: Molly seems to be the person who holds everyone's secrets. Sometimes she thinks that she might have one or two too many.


"So, the detective comes in, and he sees all the people on the floor with bullet wounds, and then he picks up a bamboo shoot, and says to the police inspector.  
>'These people were killed by a panda!'<br>'A panda?' the inspector says, 'How did you get that?'  
>and then the detective holds out his phone where he has the Wikipedia article for for pandas up.<br>'So?' says the police inspector. 'Why does that article make you think that the killer is a panda?'  
>'Because, it says right here that a panda eats, shoots, and leaves'." Tom looked expectantly at Molly giggling a little at his own joke. "He Eats, Shoots, and Leaves... did you get it?"<p>

Molly raised the edges of her mouth in a smile and chuckled lamely, "Oh yes, I get it. A panda. How funny." Suddenly her timer went off, and Molly had never been so glad to have an excuse to get out of a lame first date. "Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot. My aunt is feeling sick, and I promised to go by and deliver her medicine. So sorry I can't stay for dessert."

"Oh, I ... of course if your aunt is sick I wouldn't..." Tom jumped to his feet suddenly and pulled out Molly's chair almost dumping her on the ground. He steadied her with a hand, and when she rose to her feet and looked up at him, something about his height hit her right in the gut. 'Yes!' her hormones cried, and she swayed back about to fall again. He put an arm around her waist to steady her, and they stayed that way for a moment her chest touching his stomach, before she pushed away from him. His voice was deeper when he spoke again "I hope that I can see you again some time when you don't have an obligation. Would that be okay with you?"

"Yes," Molly says stepping away from the man who is sexy tall, but still too young for her. "Call me." She pulled on her coat and scarf and then picked up her bag, smiling briefly at the brown-haired young man before rushing out of the restaurant.

For a moment there, he reminded her of another tall man of her acquaintance. He had stepped up close to her looking down into her wide eyes and flushed skin.

"What do you need?" she had asked, and he had returned one word.

"You."

How she had kept her knees from buckling then is something that she had never understood. Her face blushed, and she wrapped her scarf tight around it as she walked down the stairs to the tube.

Forty minutes later the nurse led her into the hospital room. The walls were painted a cheery green. The bed angled up so that the dark-haired man could see her as she entered. He smiled.

Molly smiled back at him as she approached the bed. She sat in the chair beside him and said, "Hey you."

The man nodded. There was a hint of stubble growing over his lip and his dark eyes looked her up and down. She blushed. Jim had a way of communicating his thoughts even though he didn't say anything. He couldn't say anything. Not anymore. Not since the false bullet, that should have only knocked him out, grazed his vagus nerve."

"So, you seem to be over that cold. How are you feeling today?"

He reached over for the small whiteboard on the table and began to write. [I feel good. How was your date?]

Molly's eye's widened. "How did you know that I was on a date tonight? I know I never told you."

He erased the board, [New scarf and shoes. Lipstick. Hair.]

"You're amazing. I only know one other person who can read me like that, but he's gone."

The man frowned and scribbled something else on the board before holding it up. [Your boyfriend?]

She shook her head. "He was never my boyfriend. You were the closest thing that I ever had to a boyfriend, but that's not important."

[I wish I could remember,] he wrote. Then he erased the board with a cloth and began a long paragraph. He handed it to her.  
>[I saw a psychiatrist today. He gave me the effects that I came in with. The wallet, the cards. He thought that seeing them might spur some memories in me, but I don't remember a thing about my former life. It's as if Quincy Hoehn was a stranger.]<p>

Molly stilled, then she put a smile on her face. "That's alright, Quince. You don't have to remember your past. You should be thinking of your future. What do you want to do when you get out of this place?"

[I don't know. I don't know anyplace to go. It's all pictures to me.]

Molly smiled at that. "How about Paris? I've always wanted to go to Paris."

[Why haven't you? It's only across the channel.]

"I don't know? I never really got around to it, and I didn't want to go on my own. That would be too pathetic. A single girl in 'the city of love'."

[I thought Venice was the city of love.]

"See, you remember places. Do you remember ever having been in Venice?"

He frowned and one side of his lip came up in a scowl. [I do have memories of water and things. But they don't make sense. They must be nightmares.]

"You mustn't think of them as real. You have to forget the past if it hurts you. They are only nightmares."

[But they feel real. They hurt.]

Molly reached out and touched his cheek. "I don't want you to be hurt. I don't want you to have to hurt anyone either. You've got to let it go, Jim."

He stared into her eyes and held her wrist so that she wouldn't pull away. She blushed again and removed her hand from his. He picked up the slate and wrote, and when she saw what he had written, she blanched.

[Why did you call me 'Jim'?]

Molly turned her face away and tugged on the edge of her jumper. "It's a sort of nickname that I used to have for you Quincy. It's embarrassing to think that I said that out loud."

[No, I like it,] he wrote. [It fits me better than my real name does. I don't mind if you call me Jim.]

"Alright ...Jim. But I think that it's time that I get back to work. They'll be looking for me." She rose to her feet.

He shook his head violently, and then wrote. [Don't go. Please!]

She smiled and shook off his outstretched hand. "I'll be back to check on you in a few days." She walked to the door turning back to look at him.

His board read [But you had a date, you don't have work tonight.]

"See you soon," Molly said with a wave as she fled the room. She rushed down the hall but was stopped before she could leave.

"Mrs Hooper, can I have a moment of your time?" The bearded doctor asked.

"I have a... I'm expected..."

"It will only take a few moments. Please."

Molly slowly turned and followed the man into the office sitting in the seat in front of a bright wooden desk.

"I really do have to go soon," she said quietly.

"Yes, but I have a few questions for you about our patient. I must ask you, as we have no family on file. Does he have any family that we could contact?"

"Well, Mr. Hoehn didn't have any family."

"He did, however, mention you in his living will. A notice that he wanted his body given to science when he died. What exactly is your relationship with him?"

"Mr. Hoehn was a friend. He toured the facility, liked what he saw. He was going to donate his body to science. He wanted to know that when he died, his body would go to someone who cared."

"And there is no one else?"

"No. Not that I've ever heard of. Is there something wrong?"

"No it's just... given that his initial injury was with a gun, we wondered if there might be more that you could tell us."

"I think it was supposed to be a trick, like in a circus but gone horribly wrong. He had a sack of blood concealed in his hair. He was going to pretend to shoot himself and play dead. I have no idea why, I wasn't there, but when we found him, he had a gun filled with blanks. He must not have realized that the force of the explosion would be strong enough to kill him on its own. Luckily he angled it down far enough that it missed his brain, but the shockwave... well you know about the damage better than I."

"Bad business, playing with guns. That's why we have laws against it. But I'm wondering about what to do with his care. Physically he is recovered about as well as he ever will. He probably will never walk again, but with proper accessories, that should be manageable. It's the amnesia and the brain damage that's the problem. He is progressing, but he may never regain his memory. Also, there are some odd imbalances in his brain chemistry as well as his MRI. I don't think that it is a good idea for him to live alone."

"Well, he can't live with me. I'm just a ... a friend."

"I see. I understand that you wouldn't want to be burdened with dealing with someone who so obviously will be disabled. Even so, you are the only one who is listed by name on his file, and a decision must be reached soon. This is not a long-term care facility."

"What, you mean? Are you going to dump him on the street?"

"No, nothing like that. There are some nursing facilities that might be able to take him. Does he have a home?"

"He told me that he sold everything, but he has money. I know that he still has money in his accounts. He told me that he was going to donate it to Barts when he died."

"We are working on the legal work necessary to get a hold of his funds. This is difficult since he can't remember any of his access codes. But on the strength of your identification, and given the documents in his wallet we should be able to get him situated in transitional housing with daily nurse visits. Or if you can think another institution perhaps one where he came from?"

"That house...the transitional house thing. That's what he wants. He's a very smart man and, he needs his space."

"Brain damage is very serious. We have treatments, but ultimately the brain must repair itself, and the only way to do that is to give it time. Even so, his progress has been very good, and it is not outside of possibility that his entire memory will return in time."

"Ah, wonderful," Molly said rising to her feet. "But, I really must be going now, goodbye." She shook the man's hand and walked briskly out of the office. _A full recovery? God help us all!_

She had found him on the roof after Sherlock had gone, unconscious, but not dead. It was a rare drug that she had found in his blood. A tropical one that killed pain and induced paralysis. When she wheeled him into emergency, they had thought that he was dead. She had cleaned away the fake blood with a cloth, so she knew that he hadn't meant to kill himself. But even the greatest minds can make a mistake. Pain wasn't the only thing you got when you tried to swallow an explosion, even if there wasn't really a bullet in that gun.

She finally got home to find a message from Tom on the phone. He wasn't that smart, but he was worth a second date. Maybe a movie so that she wouldn't have to hear him talk. She lay back on the couch and remembered.

Quincy Hoehn had been a pleasant man with dark greying hair, and a heart condition. They had hit it off when they found out that neither of them had any family. He would come to the morgue to chat with her when he was between treatments. She figured that he might have had a bit of a crush on her, but he wasn't her type. One morning over coffee, he told her his plan to donate his body to the hospital.

"I want you to have it," he had said. "It won't do me any good, and I'd like to know that it was in good hands."

He had died suddenly two days before Sherlock's fall while waiting on a bus. His ID bracelet had him shipped to Barts. She should have informed the police of his death, but she didn't. She thought that he wouldn't mind if they buried him in Sherlock's place.

In the end she didn't have to use him. A better body had presented itself. But she had kept the wallet in his pocket just in case Sherlock needed another identity.

When she first saw Moriarty's body lying on the roof, she thought of letting him die.  
>In the end, though, she didn't have to do much of anything. They found the wallet that she had slipped into his pocket, and treated him. Luckily, he was already registered in the system. She had never appreciated how wonderful it was that the Neurologists and Cardiologists had separate staffs.<p>

The cat jumped on her lap and she went to the kitchen to feed it. Then she looked out of the window and caught sight of the moon. It was gibbous, going toward full. It made her think of monsters.

James Moriarty had been a monster, but she didn't see a monster when she looked at the man in that hospital bed. What would he do if he did ever regain his memory? She didn't know. She only knew that she liked Jim. And if he was still a psychopath, what could she say? It was fate, really. Psychopaths had always been her type.


End file.
